A few weeks ago, Electronic Arts Intermix hosted an evening with the
newest edition to the EAI galaxy of stars, Jayson Scott Musson. Better
known as his online persona Hennessy Youngman, host of ART THOUGHTZ,
a series of lectures in which he discusses everything from Bruce Nauman
to the Sublime. Musson's work—originally availably only through
Youtube—will now be archived and distributed by EAI. The move was
roundly thought of as bizarre—especially
since EAI will begin charging rental and purchase fees for works that
have been and will remain visible free of charge on Youtube.

While Youtube may provide an invaluable service for anyone trying to
circulate their work, it is important to remember that Youtube plays by
its own set of rules. Musson described his frustration when one of his
first videos to garner 100,000 views was removed for language
violations. He was unable to replace it with a clean version or
communicate with anyone at Youtube. Previously, Youtube has censored
work by artist Petra Cortright. While Youtube may seem like an online
space designed to allow users to share whatever they want, it's really
an institution that controls the content it allows online.

Furthermore, though Youtube has incredible archival potential it remains an unreliable archival source. While ART THOUGHTZ is currently on Youtube, there's no guarantee it will remain there in
the future. EAI has a function that may involve pulling works from their
original contexts, but ultimately ensures not only that artists' work
is reliably available, but also that they recieve compensation for that
work. No one balks at EAI's preservation and distribution of The Medium is the Medium,
a 1969 collaboration between WGBH and emerging video pioneers. Though
made for broadcast TV, you ...